As the use of wireless communication devices continues to proliferate, safety issues arrive. In particular, the use of wireless devices while driving a vehicle raises safety issues. As a result, many jurisdictions now mandate the use of hands-free wireless devices while driving.
Hands-free circuits may be employed in wireless devices, such as personal data assistants (PDAs), cellular phones, two-way radios, car kits for cellular telephones, car phones for use in airplanes, and other suitable devices that can move throughout a geographic area. Additionally, hands-free circuits may be employed in wireline devices, such as desk phones, hands-free speaker phones, pay phones, kiosk phones, video and audio conference phones and telephones otherwise commonly referred to in the telecommunications industry as plain old telephone system (POTS) devices. Hands-free speaker phones typically include a microphone to produce the uplink signal, a speaker to acoustically produce the downlink signal, an echo canceler to cancel the echo signal and a telephone circuit.
The hands-free speaker phone may be fully or partially integrated into an in-vehicle audio system to wirelessly communicate with a wireless device. The vehicle may be any suitable vehicle, such as an automobile, truck, boat or airplane. The in-vehicle audio system may include an amplifier, speakers and an audio source, such as a tuner circuit, a CD/DVD player, a tape player, a hard drive playback system, a satellite radio, etc. The in-vehicle audio system may communicate with a wireless device via a communication apparatus in the vehicle. For example, the communication apparatus may be installed into a vehicle by mounting and wiring the communication apparatus, a microphone, a speaker and a display in the vehicle. Alternatively, the communication apparatus may be suitably self-contained and simply plug into a vehicle cigarette lighter.
In a hands-free circuit, a near end user transmits an uplink signal to a far end user via the microphone. Conversely, the near end user receives a downlink signal from the far end user. Typically, the downlink audio signal received from the far end through the downlink path is played through at least one speaker either integrated in the communication apparatus or installed in the in-vehicle audio system. As previously stated, however, operating the hands-free speaker phone installed in the vehicle may distract the user, especially while driving.
According to one method, a display shows wireless device status information, such as caller identification information. However, such a display may be distracting to the driver of the vehicle. As a result, a display on a hands-free device used in a vehicle is undesirable. According to another method, the hands-free device installed in a vehicle provides a single speech message when communication is not possible with the wireless device regardless of the type of communication problem. However, such a device plays only a single message regardless of the type of communication problem and therefore does not play a speech message corresponding with wireless device status information.